There is a lot about MMORPGs that we don't know. Lots of arguments on blogs like this one, or on various other website or forums, are made based on anecdotal evidence at best. Look for example at the famous "if you play Horde, then you are an evil person" debate, which was based on a the reaction of a single 3-year old on seeing undead. Wouldn't it be better if we had broader statistical evidence on questions like what choice of avatar says about a person? Well, it turns out you can contribute to gathering that evidence. The most famous MMORPG statistician (not much of a title, I admit) Nick Yee is continuing work on his Daedalus Project. And you can participate. Fill out the survey, spread the word, and we will know more about questions like these.

Wow, that's a lot of comments on that survey page from people saying they don't play any more.

It's a shame his survey doesn't include ex-players and why they left. The results might settle one particular argument as to exactly why so many players appear to be leaving WoW.

If anyone else is also interested in why players are leaving, I suggest leaving a comment over at his site asking him to consider extending his survey to include this. Maybe if there's enough interest he might consider it.

@Mike: One of the primary reasons why we picked WoW is because Blizzard releases lots of public data on characters. For example, the Armory has over 3,500 variables per character. No other MMO comes close in terms of public behavioral data. Another reason is the broad localization around the world, which makes it possible to compare sizeable numbers of, say, EU vs US vs China WoW players. I'm not saying this to imply that this focus is perfect, but just to provide some of the background rationale on our design choice.

@Helistar: I've addressed some sampling issues elsewhere (http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/001464.php), but the short story is that so much research has been done with WoW players using a variety of methods--including randomly-sampled server-side research, that it is now possible to understand, triangulate, and correct these skews. Also, it bears to keep in mind that the scientific method is a gradual, cumulative process. Seldom does any one study provide a definitive answer, but over time, consistent patterns and trends across games, genres, and cultures do emerge. This has also been the case with MMO research. When multiple studies using different samples and different methods lead to the same findings, we become more certain of these findings over time.

Wherever you have human participants, you run into a self-selection problem because we can't coerce people to participate in studies. But just because a method isn't perfect doesn't mean we should ignore the research question altogether.